OCTOBER 2019 UPDATE: The Global Polio Eradication Initiative

Since 1988 the 5 core partner organisations (WHO, Rotary, CDC, UNICEF and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) have achieved an international investment of US $14 billion which has enabled 20 million volunteers to vaccinate over 2.5 billion children in 200 countries. This has prevented at least 13 million new cases of polio

Rotary provide and maintain permanent vaccination centres, solar refrigeration equipment, cool boxes, cell phones for rapid response, and a cohort of willing volunteers

Now in 2019, the wild Polio virus is endemic in only two countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan (66 cases, down from 2635 in 1994), with treatment made more difficult because both countries have mobile populations not aware or accepting of the risk or consequnces of Polio, and cultural resistanace to external interventions

Frustratingly, persons who have been vaccinated can spread the disease because of poor sanitation, and substantial research has found this to be the primary cause of Polio re-emerging in Syria, Ghana and Myanmar. To prevent these vaccine derived infections every child from the age of 4 months up to five years requires to be vaccinated 9 times per year

An additional US $2 billion has been pledged in a push to finally eradicate polio. Tens of thousands of soldiers are deployed to safeguard the 25,000 vaccinators working in difficult areas to give full vaccinations to children until polio is eradicated

THE ROTARY POLIO PLUS CAMPAIGN

- The World Health Organization (WHO)

- Rotary International

- The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

- The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Click the logo below for more information on GPEI:

In 1985 there were 125 countries where polio was endemic and 365,000 cases of polio were reported every year